Mayor Barnett signed oil lease with Jordan Development for parks near our homes and schools on Jan. 15, 2013

Why does it matter given that Jordan has claimed “no interest” in the area? This same company is now asking the DEQ for drilling permit approval for another residential area in Oakland County… Southfield, Michigan. It is clear that Jordan Exploration has not gone away as the Mayor and other city officials have implied. There has not been a rescission of the contracts. The multiple contracts in the Rochester area started appearing after the Rochester Hills mayor contracted the large parcels of public park property for oil exploration.

Here we present a time line and documents:

9/11/2012

Mayor Bryan Barnett meets with Jordan Development Company to review the oil and gas lease proposal he requested.

1/15/2013

Mayor signs the oil and gas lease for parks on Tienken and Adams Roads, and a cemetery on Tienken Road. without the lease having been presented for approval by voters in the City pursuant to the City Charter provisions at Section 11.8.

2/16/2013

One month after the Mayor signs the above, the owner of properties just north of Nowicki Park on Adams Road signs oil and gas drilling contracts, one of which allows for surface operations on a 5 acre parcel.

2/2/2015

Two years after the above surface drilling contract is signed, it is finally recorded with the Oakland County Register of Deeds making them a public record.

10/20/2015

Don’t Drill The Hills publicly announces the discovery of the surface drilling contract found during a search of County records. The documents were missed in previous searches because they were filed without listing the property address and using only the address of the owner in Troy, MI. It took advanced searches to find, and then more than 2 weeks to verify Parcels and addresses with City tax records.

The oil and gas drilling contract allows surface operations including drilling rigs, pipelines, access roads, and storage tanks on the property which is in a high density residential area across the road from Rochester Adams High School. This evidence, which is a matter of pubic record, runs completely counter to Rochester Hills Mayor Barnett’s claims that oil companies have “no interest” in the area, and Councilman Tisdel’s emphatic insistence there are no surface leases in Rochester Hills.

Will the Mayor’s actions lead to the industrialization of our residential areas?

The mayor signing the lease for 45 acres of parks gave the oil and gas development company the necessary land to aggressively pursue leases in the surrounding neighborhoods. Subsequent to the City signing the Lease, the oil company began using the City’s approval of the Lease as a selling point for why other nearby property owners should also sign leases, and leases were executed by property owners after the City’s Lease was presented to them during the negotiation process. The oil and gas contracts signed for 950 Adams Road, 974 Adams Road, and 2965 Tienken Road are a direct result of the actions taken by the mayor.

The lease of the City parks opened the door to the industrialization of our residential areas. The City and Mayor need to reverse these actions to help protect our residents and our residential areas.

This information was obtained by our team of volunteers through publicly available sources. Certain documents were legally purchased and maintaining this web site costs money.Please donate to help us continue.